Microsoft has released its successor to FrontPage. Microsoft Expression Web is its new design software package to compete with the Adobe Creative suite.

In its day Microsoft FrontPage set the standard for an easy to use Web site, application and page design software. Dreamweaver and other packages may have been preferred by us geeks. FrontPage held (and still does) the preference for the masses. Its initial release certainly brought Web sites within the reach of anyone who could use Microsoft Word. I know folks who have sworn by FrontPage for years – and they have never seen a single line of HTML code. (And I am glad they never looked; the code was never very clean).

Microsoft Expression Web is a major upgrade as the replacement for FrontPage and reveals many more technical aspects than FrontPage did. This may in fact discourage widespread adoption by previous FrontPage users. No matter. With this package, Microsoft is certainly going full bore to compete with the Adobe Creative Suite and move away from its lighter weight FrontPage predecessor. Reviewers do not see this as a Macromedia or Photoshop killer. However, the package is clearly targeted to the Web newbies and literati and will eat into the market for those not tied to Adobe. .

Adobe based designers will likely never switch to this suite. However, it will attract those who prefer Microsoft’s’ end-to-end integration across the Office/Server line. The biggest fault of this tool/product line appears to be that it comes from Microsoft. I expect that the vocal anti-Microsoft crowd will not be able to overcome the ease of acquisition and acceptance for product integration the majority of computer users have with Microsoft products.

My first impressions with this product are positive. It places a set of Web 2.0 features into the hands of the masses without the need to learn code. Once the plug-ins become more available the functionality will come to rival that available via its Adobe competition. I do not think I will switch from Dreamweaver. But, I would consider recommending the package to those without a brand preference.

Check out the products here: http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/

A thorough review will be posted soon.

Trackback